I put up three new articles on our sister site MoviesWithButter.com. Two of them are about the weekend box office, which “Paper Towns” made interesting. The other one is about the early reviews for the new “Mission: Impossible” film starring Tom Cruise.
“Paper Towns,” a teen coming-of-age story based on a novel by John Green (“The Fault in Our Stars”), did pretty well when it opened on Friday. It made $6.3M, which would usually translate into a $20M weekend haul, but it dropped off the cliff on Saturday, making just $3.5M; films tend to make the most on Saturday’s, so this is not a good sign for the film’s future.
I saw “Pixels” and “Southpaw” last week. Both aren’t good films.
Of the two, “Southpaw” is more engaging. The acting is great, especially by Jake Gyllenhaal. However, the film felt rushed to me. It seems like most of the character development ended up on the cutting room floor just so the film can move from one plot point to another.
I like the arcade sequences in “Pixels,” but between those scenes, it’s not interesting or funny. It’s too bad; I was looking forward to a fun movie, but instead I was kinda bored.
This morning, after my podcast with Binh Ngo, I noticed on Rotten Tomatoes that “Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation” already has 30 reviews, and critics are raving about it. When a studio doesn’t have an embargo on reviews before a film opens, you know they’re pretty confident about it. Click here to see what I’m predicting it would make this weekend at the box office.
I’m watching a promotional screening of “Rogue Nation” tonight, so expect a short review tomorrow.
